Animals

Science has done a lot to broaden our understanding of the universe. It’s taken us to the moon, smashed subatomic particles together, and estimated the sell-by date of the Earth – it’s in 3.5 billion years, if you want to set your alarm clock. Read More >>

In 1955, 17 killer whales were found stranded on a beach in Paraparaumu, New Zealand. Scientists thought they looked weird, but they shrugged it off as some type of genetic deformity. Since then, the whale has been something of an urban legend until fishermen and tourists began capturing rare images of the animals. Read More >>

For most of his life, British author and BBC radio producer Tim Dee has been a birdwatcher. But it’s not finches and sparrows that have captured his heart—it’s gulls, those large, squawking sea birds with a fondness for discarded chips. While many of us think of gulls as little more than flying rats, Dee is loves to study gull behaviour in landfills across Britain. He also helps to net and ring them for scientific research. Read More >>

On Thursday, I clicked on a link that promised to show me a snail “playing” with a baby carrot. The video was nice, but I wanted to know more. After speaking with multiple snail specialists, I have inched toward the truth about “Snails Can’t Get Enough of Baby Carrot,” dear readers, and it’s either fun in a different way or a bit sad. Read More >>

While some might find them gross, you could say that the animals we associate with garbage like opossums and raccoons are ecological success stories. We humans drastically change our environments wherever we go, yet these crafty critters figure out a way to thrive in our presence. They use our trash to survive. Read More >>

The Indian star tortoise native to parts of India has been declining in the wild since at least 2000. Why? People want them as pets. A stark reminder of this fact came on Sunday, after authorities in the Philippines’ Ninoy Aquino International Airport found some 1,500 live turtles and tortoises inside four abandoned suitcases that arrived from Hong Kong. Read More >>

Spiders are creepy even at the best of times, but new photos taken from the Amazon rainforest put these predatory creatures in an even more fearsome light: as they’re chomping down on animals of unusual sizes. Read More >>

From the outside a dog’s life can seem close to ideal, at least at those moments when your desire to do nothing runs up against the imperatives of being alive (going to work, doing dishes, buying food for the dog, etc.). Plus, dogs generally don’t require fistfuls of paracetamol just to make it through the day. But would they, if they understood the concept of medicine, and could somehow unscrew those childproof caps with their paws? Put otherwise: do dogs get headaches? For this week’s Giz Asks, we reached out to a number of experts in canine medicine and behaviour to find out. Read More >>

A black, thumb-sized missile sails through the jungle air, a thunderous buzzing announcing its arrival. The massive insect lands heavily on a tree-bound termite nest, taking a moment to fold its brassy wings and stretch its humongous, curved jaws. This is Wallace’s giant bee, the beefiest and bumbliest bee on Earth. After going missing for nearly four decades, the species has just been rediscovered in its native Indonesia. Read More >>

20-year-old Tasmanian George Vaughan had three main goals for his trip to the United States last month: see a Metallica concert, visit Niagara Falls, and go to a landfill in the US state of Alabama. The landfill, he hoped, would help him realise a dream he’d held for six years: to see a laughing gull, a “seagull” generally considered a nuisance by your average American beachgoer. Read More >>